


Five Minutes

by Kahvi



Category: Sherlock (TV) RPF
Genre: M/M, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-23
Updated: 2012-12-23
Packaged: 2017-11-22 04:33:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/605854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kahvi/pseuds/Kahvi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Benedict and Martin are in Tokyo together. Momentarily.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Minutes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [smaychel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/smaychel/gifts).



> This is a work of fiction. It is not a story about the REAL Benedict Cumberbatch or Martin Freeman, nor is it meant to depict, imply or suggest anything about said actors or their lives. I am merely taking a fictionalized version of their public personas for a no-disrespect-intended spin.

It is difficult to hide in a Business Class seat with an entourage and approximately fifty shades of smiling flight attendants asking him what he wants every five minutes. It is not socially acceptable to say 'to be left alone'; moreover, it is rude and unkind, however necessary, so Ben doesn't. He has glass after glass of brand name water, politely declines the food until dessert arrives, feeling vaguely guilty about it until they land.

And then, they _land_.

Ben floats on the wave of _acceptance_ , hitting him somewhere he can't quite define. He shouldn't lap it up so, like a greedy cat, but he does. He signs until they pull him away, and it is only when the limo door shuts behind him that he even thinks to look at his phone and silently mumble 'shit'.

* * *

Tokyo is gigantic. It is full of lights and people and things he can't quite see zooming past the tinted windows. Not tinted on the inside, of course. He's known that, even before he set foot in one, but now and again he re-discovers it and feels like smiling. Sometimes he even does. The itinerary is tight. Ben listens with idle guilt as other people run through it for him, nodding and confirming when needed. The hotel, first, which is less usual than you'd think, briefly, then this, that, and so on for hours and days and nights. It settles in his mind like a quiet fog. He is lucky, he remembers, accepting a drink.

* * *

They have half an hour. Bags are scurried to and fro, keys are given to people who aren't him, and Ben grins, because the cheering crowd is still with him. (Not literally; this is an empty, shining palace of supposed safety. Away from everything and everyone.) 'Half an hour', he is told again. He nods, stepping into the lift. He doesn't have a key, he realizes, stepping out, but the lift has already gone back down again. Another opens. Martin steps out.

Martin.

He smells like gin and too much soap, and hasn't shaved in just long enough to get his skin from 'smooth' to 'rough around the edges'. He's wearing pale blue trousers and ridiculous shoes because he's Martin, and he's _here_ , and he's saying something.

"Five minutes."

"Sorry... what?"

"We've got five minutes. I sneaked over here; Amanda made a diversion. They'll notice in a moment, though." He looks five years older in an instant. "I have to go. I have to. Flight."

Ben nods. "Yeah. Yeah."

"Can we pretend you came all the way over here for me?"

"I didn't."

"Fuck," Martin laughs, "I _know!_ I'm not fucking stupid, and nor are you. You're not mad."

"There's a press thing." Ben fidgets.

"I know. Yeah."

"Chris is here, and, um..."

"I'd just like to pretend." Martin's eyes aren't blue, but they look it, here. Piercing. Ben can never look at him for long like that. He's fishing for something, and really, _now?_ What sort of timing do you call that?

"My flight was delayed; we would have had another twenty minutes."

Martin shrugs as if to say alternate universes didn't count, and glanced at his watch. "I do. I do have to go."

He squeezes Ben's shoulder and shrugs, and leaves Japan, and the crowd cheers and Ben is really lucky to be doing this.

**Author's Note:**

> Benedict arriving in Japan: http://24.media.tumblr.com/50365d1a32f43848cd2724b347cb5740/tumblr_mf5985qihf1rm4y7go1_500.jpg  
> https://mobile.twitter.com/payapaya37/status/275507605089165312/photo/1  
> http://www.tvgroove.com/news/article/ctg/2/nid/9273.html


End file.
